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The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has expressed disdain for Nigerians who condemn corruption yet mobilise support for corruption suspects when they are being prosecuted.
The EFCC chairman made this known while receiving the Centre for Crisis Communication (CCC) officials, led by Chris Olukolade, in Abuja on Friday, January 31, 2025.
He said the country would have witnessed more development if every citizen sees corruption as a common enemy.
“Everybody is crying that Nigerians are corrupt, that the system is corrupt, that corruption is killing us and destroying our system,” he stated.
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Meanwhile, Olukoyede said collaboration and synergy with the CCC will boost strategic communication and public engagement, highlighting the importance of public support to the EFCC's success.
EFCC chairman slams supporters of corrupt leaders
He also disclosed that the anti-graft body would partner with other organisations to raise public awareness of its activities and the importance of integrity among Nigerians.
“When we investigate high-profile cases and arraign people in court, the same people will carry placards and be supporting corrupt leaders. It doesn’t show that we are serious about this fight. The fight is supposed to be a collaborative effort.
“No single agency can do it alone. It is practically impossible for us, as EFCC, to fight all the battles. Society has a role to play; policy has a role to play, and the welfare of the citizens has a role to play,” he added.
Speaking on his leadership trajectory, Olukoyede explained that he had prioritised prevention over enforcement since joining the team.
At the same time, the EFCC boss pointed out that leveraging intelligence gathering in the agency's work has been instrumental to some of its recent mind-blowing successes.
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“Now we are laying more emphasis on prevention which is a critical aspect of our mandate. We don’t have to always be waiting for money to be stolen before we start working in EFCC. To drive prevention, I established a new directorate called Fraud Risk Assessment and Control, FRAC and now we are doing more of blocking of the leakages.
“We have access to GIFMIS (government payment platform). We want to track and see where every money, released is going. We want to ensure that every capital project is executed. With prevention, we discovered that there will be less to enforce.
“We are not dropping our mandate on enforcement. As a matter of fact, we are scaling it up. But we believe that it is important for us to prevent because it costs less to prevent than to react when the deed must have been done. So that is one of our areas of focus as of now,” he concluded.